1,616 research outputs found
Usefulness of quantifying serum KL-6 levels in the follow-up of uveitic patients with sarcoidosis
No full textBackground: KL-6 is a human glycoprotein secreted by type II alveolar cells in the lung, and its serum levels increase in pneumonia of various causes. We previously reported that serum KL-6 levels in uveitis patients with sarcoidosis were significantly higher than those of other uveitis patients and healthy controls. Additionally, the combined measurement of serum KL-6 and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) was useful for screening uveitic patients to diagnose sarcoidosis. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the clinical usefulness of quantifying serum KL-6 levels for following-up the patients with sarcoidosis. Methods: Sera were obtained from 36 uveitic patients diagnosed with sarcoidosis and the same number of healthy volunteers. To examine the influence of systemic medication, we also collected blood samples from four more sarcoidosis patients, who were systemically treated with corticosteroid or angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, an anti-hypertensive drug. The serum concentration of KL-6 was measured by a human KL-6 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA). Results: The mean KL-6 concentrations of sarcoidosis patients and healthy controls were 449.3 +/- 66.3 (mean +/- SE) and 192.1 +/- 11.3, respectively. The average levels of serum KL-6 were significantly elevated in sarcoidosis patients compared with healthy control subjects (P < 0.001), and there were significant correlations between serum KL-6 and ACE levels in the patients with sarcoidosis (r=0.70 and P < 0.0001). Moreover, serum KL-6 concentrations were less affected by systemic corticosteroid, and unaffected by ACE inhibitory drugs in contrast to ACE levels. Conclusions: Measurement of serum KL-6 in the uveitic patients may be useful to follow-up the diagnosed sarcoidosis, as well as for diagnosing sarcoidosis, because the serum KL-6 level was well correlated with the ACE level, and less affected by systemic medication than ACE levels
Serial KL-6 measurements in COVID-19 patients
No full textSARS-CoV2-induced direct cytopathic effects against type II pneumocytes are suspected to play a role in mediating and perpetuating lung damage. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum KL-6 behavior in COVID-19 patients to investigate its potential role in predicting clinical course. Sixty patients (median age IQR, 65 (52–69), 43 males), hospitalized for COVID-19 at Siena COVID Unit University Hospital, were prospectively enrolled. Twenty-six patients were selected (median age IQR, 63 (55–71), 16 males); all of them underwent follow-up evaluations, including clinical, radiological, functional, and serum KL-6 assessments, after 6 (t1) and 9 (t2) months from hospital discharge. At t0, KL-6 concentrations were significantly higher than those at t1 (760 (311–1218) vs. 309 (210–408) p = 0.0208) and t2 (760 (311–1218) vs 324 (279–458), p = 0.0365). At t0, KL-6 concentrations were increased in patients with fibrotic lung alterations than in non-fibrotic group (755 (370–1023) vs. 305 (225–608), p = 0.0225). Area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) analysis showed that basal KL-6 levels showed good accuracy in discriminating patients with fibrotic sequelae radiologically documented (AUC 85%, p = 0.0404). KL-6 concentrations in patients with fibrotic involvement were significantly reduced at t1 (755 (370–1023) vs. 290 (197–521), p = 0.0366) and t2 (755 (370–1023) vs. 318 (173–435), p = 0.0490). Serum concentrations of KL-6 in hospitalized COVID-19 patients may contribute to identify severe patients requiring mechanical ventilation and to predict those who will develop pulmonary fibrotic sequelae in the follow-up. © 2021, The Author(s)
A smooth Lyapunov function from a class-KL estimate involving two positive semidefinite functions
No full textWe consider differential inclusions where a positive semidefinite function of the solutions satisfies a class-KL estimate in terms of time and a second positive semidefinite function of the initial condition. We show that a smooth converse Lyapunov function, i.e., one whose derivative along solutions can be used to establish the class-KL estimate, exists if and only if the class-KL estimate is robust, i.e., it holds for a larger, perturbed differential inclusion. It remains an open question whether all class-KL estimates are robust. One sufficient condition for robustness is that the original differential inclusion is locally Lipschitz. Another sufficient condition is that the two positive semidefinite functions agree and a backward completability condition holds. These special cases unify and generalize many results on converse Lyapunov theorems for differential equations and differential inclusions that have appeared in the literature. Corresponding author. y Research supported i..
KL Process Design Group: unleashing natural sugars for tomorrow's strategic energy plan
No full textPresented at the Can forests meet our energy needs? The future of forest biomass in Colorado conference, February 21, 2008, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.James Schultze is a process engineer with KL Process Design Group in Rapid City, South Dakota. He has been working on KL's biomass project since 2006 and has been involved in the research, construction and operation of the newly constructed biomass plant in Upton, WY. His industry experience started with Shell Oil Company in Houston, TX as a production engineer in Shell's Midcontinent Division. Jim is a chemical engineering graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, SD
Aircraft component health analysis for predictive maintenance: using a dilated convolutional autoencoder and KL divergence
No full textThe detection of anomalous behaviour is fundamental to component health analysis techniques. However, detecting anomalies is a difficult and time consuming task if their form, location, and frequency are unknown. This research introduces an innovative unsupervised predictive maintenance pipeline that requires minimal domain knowledge and time to create competitive and insightful health monitoring models. First, a Dilated Convolutional Autoencoder learns to recreate healthy sensor data. Then, a Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence based health analysis transforms discrepancies between the reconstruction and the sensor data into a single performance metric per sensor per flight. A novel evaluation method based on the KL divergence metric allows for quantitative evaluation and hyperparameter tuning of the autoencoder. Results provide new insights and show competitive performance on analysing the fuel level measuring system. Additionally, in a generalisability study on the braking system of a different aircraft type the proposed method outperforms the currently employed health monitoring model in precision and F1 score. The main advantages of the proposed method are; the ability to rapidly create unbiased health indicators on a sensor level, the capability to generalise to other components, and a framework to quantitatively evaluate the model’s performance when no truth labels are available.Mechanical Engineering | Vehicle Engineering | Cognitive Robotic
BIMA ARRAY 3 MM SPECTRAL LINE SURVEY OF ORION-KL
No full textAuthor Institution: University of Illinois, Dept. of Astronomy, 1002 W. Green St, Urbana, IL 61801; National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA 22903; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Space and Earth Data Computing Division, Code 930, Greenbelt, MD 20771; National Research Council Resident Research AssociateWith the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland-Association (BIMA) Array we have carried out a 3 mm (80-115.9 GHz) spectral line survey of Orion-KL. Orion-KL is composed of several distinct regions separated by only a few arcseconds, most notably the ``Hot Core'', where N bearing species are most prevalent, and the ``Compact Ridge'', where O bearing species are most prevalent. For our observations the average synthesized beam was 14''x8''. We detected over 700 spectral features from the ``Hot Core'' and over 600 spectral features from the ``Compact Ridge''. We will present the abundances and spatial distribution of the detected species
A proposal for a more sustainable catering service for KL Cityhopper Fairline
No full textReducing the impact of flying is a concern in the aviation industry, especially on the short haul flights. KL Cityhopper (KLC) noticed they create food waste onboard of their European flights because they have a one-fits-all catering solution. They are aware that all back-up food and beverage options brought into the air cause extra weight and extra CO2 emission. They want their catering to have the option to be personalized to the needs of their passenger. This graduation project explores a new more sustainable way of providing a catering service to the passenger for the KLC Fairline. The internal and external analyses have been done to explore the current aviation catering and the behaviour of passengers; all gave valuable insights. The internal analysis showed that the catering on short haul is not possible to customize in advance. It is a free product provided during the flight and the passengers are not completely informed about what can be expected. While the longer flights have communications and choices in advance for the different types of catering onboard. Next to that, there is limited insights to the actual use of the service onboard. The competitors show in advance what can be expected of the free or paid services, using onboard magazines or websites with short movies. Resulting in insights about specific use per location.The passengers of KLC are demographically quite different, better to describe them by their needs during the journey. These diverse needs in the passenger travel journey are further explored by interviews, with the focus on the time they spend waiting at the airport.The future economy catering service of the KLC Fairline should be a brand store at the major airports, so KL can make use of this store too. The passengers can pick-up their own food and beverages and take it with them on the plane. The service will provide more options to fit better with the diverse food and beverage needs of passengers. The brand store is more sustainable solution because it will remove all catering trolleys from the planes on the short haul, it reduces weight and CO2 emission. The food waste will decrease significantly since the store has a system to keep track of the actual use of the service, further optimization of the service use is possible. The passengers informed of what is possible with the catering using information online, in e-mails and the KL-app.A roadmap for the KL catering service is made that includes the short, medium and long-haul flights. The steps for KLC from the current situation to the vision service are described, including how the current A La Carte product on the long haul can be extended to the medium haul.Integrated Product Desig
Songs in the camp : KL Plaszow and the possibility of an audio memorial
No full textArtykuł stanowi próbę wskazania najbardziej wyrazistych strategii obserwacji funkcji dźwięków i muzyki w kacetach oraz kuratorskiego „myślenia muzyką” w ekspozycjach lagrowo-holokaustowych. Katalog tych różnorodnych ujęć pomaga zrozumieć tło i kontekst czasowy działań zespołu kuratorskiego krakowskiego muzeum na terenie KL Plaszow, a także zrekonstruować rozwijanie się projektu Pomnika Dźwiękowego KL Plaszow planowanego dla tego miejsca, oraz wskazuje na inspirujące dźwiękowe realizacje narracji historycznych umieszczonych na otwartych terenach naznaczonych trudną lub traumatyzującą historią. Objaśnienia te partnerują tekstowi kuratorskiemu Michała Libery, autora koncepcji wielopoziomowego, stereometrycznego upamiętnienia dźwiękowego, które komponowane, nagrywane i tworzone jest dla terenu byłego nazistowskiego obozu w Krakowie. Niematerialny wymiar muzyki pozwala na nieinwazyjne łączenie upamiętniającego gestu i współczesnego życia miejsca; niesemiotyczny charakter narracji dźwiękowej daje ponadto nadzieję na budowę porozumienia w różnych, czasem skonfliktowanych społecznościach – dziedziczących uprzedzenia z czasów wojny, tych powojennych i tych współczesnych.
akustyczne, sound studiesThis article attempts to identify the most distinctive strategies for observing the function of sounds and music in concentration camps and curatorial "thinking with music" in camp-Holocaust expositions. A catalog of these diverse approaches helps to understand the background and temporal context of the activities of the Krakow museum’s curatorial team at the KL Plaszow site, as well as to reconstruct the development of the KL Plaszow Sound Monument project planned for the site. It also points out inspiring sound realizations of historical narratives placed in open areas marked by a difficult or traumatizing history. These explanations partner with the curatorial text by Michał Libera, author of the concept of a multi-level, stereometric sound commemoration that is composed, recorded and created for the site of the former Nazi camp in Krakow. The non-material dimension of the music allows for a non-invasive blending of the commemorative gesture and the contemporary life of the site; the non-semiotic nature of the sound narrative, moreover, offers hope for building understanding in different, sometimes conflicted communities – those inheriting wartime prejudices, post-war ones and those of today
Platelet-rich plasma and macular hole surgery: A clue to their mode of action and the influence of anti-platelet agents
No full text\ua9 The Author(s) 2022. Purpose: To present a case of refractory full-thickness macular hole (FTMH), in which autologous platelet-rich plasma (aPRP) was used on two consecutive occasions, and associated with successful closure only after complete cessation of anti-platelet therapy. Methods: Interventional case report. Results: A 63-year-old male with Alport syndrome underwent pars plana vitrectomy with internal limiting membrane peeling and gas for a large FTMH. The patient was on systemic anti-platelet agents for coronary disease. Post-operatively, the FTMH remained open and repeated surgery, augmented with aPRP, was performed. Although a thick pre-retinal coagulum was evident on optical coherence tomography on day one post-surgery, the second surgery failed. Ultimately, successful aPRP-augmented surgical closure of the FTMH was achieved only after complete cessation of systemic anti-platelet agents. Conclusion: Appropriate management of anti-platelet therapy may be relevant when planning aPRP use, though further large-scale studies are needed to assess the precise effect of anti-platelet therapy on the efficacy of aPRP, and to confirm the potential role of aPRP in patients with Alport syndrome
Altered distribution of bone matrix proteins and defective bone mineralization in klotho-deficient mice
No full textIn an attempt to identify the histological properties of the klotho-deficient (kl/kl) bone matrix, bone mineralization and the localization of Ca2+-binding bone matrix proteins - osteocalcin, dentin matrix protein-1 (DMP-1) and matrix Gla protein (MGP) - were examined in kl/kl tibiae. While a widespread osteocalcin staining could be verified in the wild-type bone matrix, localization of the same protein in the kl/kl tibiae seemed rather restricted to osteocytes with only a faint staining of the whole bone matrix. In wild-type mice, MGP immunoreactivity was present at the junction between the epiphyseal bone and cartilage, and at the insertion of the cruciate ligaments. In kl/kl mice, however, MGP was seen around the cartilaginous cores of the metaphyseal trabeculae and in the periphery of some cells of the bone surface. DMP-1 was identified in the osteocytic canalicular system of wild-type tibiae, but in the kl/kl tibiae this protein was mostly found in the osteocytic lacunae and in the periphery of some cells of the bone surface. Mineralization of the kl/kl bone seemed somewhat defective, with broad unmineralized areas within its matrix. In these areas, mineralized osteocytes along with their lacunae and osteocytic cytoplasmic processes were found to have intense osteocalcin and DMP-1 staining. Taken together, it might be that the excessive production of Ca2+-binding molecules such as osteocalcin and DMP-1 by osteocytes concentrates mineralization around such cells, disturbing the completeness of mineralization in the kl/kl bone matrix. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
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